Mary

 

When Mary retired in 2008,

she didn't slow down.

She still loves to go Birding

every spring. 

Here, she is hiking Angel's Landing 

in Zion National Park.

She plays tennis in Michigan,

Arizona and Florida.

Enjoys a spectacular view,

in sometimes risky locations!

Enjoys a stroll along Lake Michigan,

or the Atlantic Ocean. 

Knows how to relax along a river,

and read a good book outdoors.

Knows her mind, and does not

straddle the fence.

Knows how to have fun.

Is a very classy lady.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Starter Words

 

I scribble a few starter words

onto this empty yellow page.

Black letters across blue lines

awaiting a sense of direction.

Hungry for a hint, an indication,

or some subtle suggestion

on where to go, how to proceed.

Then I decide to stop and read:

Kenyon* and Kooser*,

Stafford* and Stafford* for starters.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

* Jane Kenyon

*Ted Kooser

*William Stafford

*Kim Stafford

You may also like:  "Hovering Pen"

If You Have Any

 

If you're reading this during daylight,

could you please go outside and find

a good, wide view of the sky?

Then, could you make a brief observation

of the position and composition

of the clouds in your sky?

If you have any.

You know, just the basic three types:

cirrus, stratus, cumulus.

And one last request,

if you don't mind,

if you have any 

time:

Could you please tell me the speed

and the direction they are drifting,

so I can watch for their arrival?

You may be watching your sky right now,

or you may still be reading.

Either way, 

thank you for your participation.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. North Fort Myers, Florida

2. Tubac, Arizona

3. Grand Mesa, Colorado

4. St. Patrick Church - Parnell, Michigan

Sharing Excerpts

 

Time is the illusion

that carries us along

as we watch the sun

slanting between the clouds,

while sitting on the deck

drinking hot coffee

from our favorite mugs,

and sharing excerpts

from the books we're reading,

while I'm thinking about how

I should end this poem.

© 2024 Richard Havenga

Reading Outdoors

 

Oh, the many benefits

of reading outdoors:

The sun shining brightly

on the pages of your book.

Tree shadows passing

over the paragraphs.

Perhaps golden leaves

landing in your lap.

A small choir of birds

singing in the background.

Or a clamorous crowd of geese

causing you to look up.

Occasional bursts of wind

turning the pages for you.

Dragonflies landing on the lines,

walking on the words.

Maybe a cool stream

trickling over your toes.

Or the sound of gentle ripples

entering your ears.

All these welcome distractions

affecting your concentration.

Causing you to get paper and pen.

Following the urge to write outdoors.

© 2023 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Fallasburg Park - Lowell, Michigan

2. Tassell Park - Cascade, Michigan

3. Saul Lake Bog Nature Preserve - Parnell, Michigan

4. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

5. SaddleBrooke - Arizona

Path of Time

 

There are others

just ahead of me

on this path of time.

I observe them discreetly;

watching their gait,

their growing caution

with everyday movements.

Taking mental notes,

imagining myself

five or ten years older;

Will I still be running?

Will my mind be lucid?

My eyes strong enough to read?

This journey I am on,

no matter my age,

will always convey one

perennial theme:

Forever gratitude to God

for the incomparable

gift of life.

© 2023 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Castle Valley, Utah

2. West Elk Wilderness - Colorado

Indoors

 

The long daylight

of our summer days

has diminished,

has been replaced

by late afternoon dusks.

Dusks that introduce

nights of long darkness.

So, less time outdoors

for work and recreation,

but more time indoors

for quiet hours of reading,

and time for writing

poems about light.

© 2022 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Loveland, Colorado

Contentment

As a child, it was all about

rambunctious energy and play.

Now, in my mid-seventies,

I understand contentment.

Running and tennis

still energize my body.

Writing and reading

still stimulate my mind.

I had never dreamed

of becoming a poet.

With nature always available,

I will never run out of content.

Writing poetry

makes me feel content.

© 2022 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Key West - Florida

2. SaddleBrooke - Arizona

Next Spring

 

How did you get to be seventy four?

You retired with some goals in mind,

and some of them were achieved.

What to do with all this

time

on your hands?

Embrace it.

Pursuing your passions:

Writing. Reading. Running. Nature Photography.

Spend your time outdoors.

Bring the outdoors inside

your poetry.

Next spring,

plant some trees and shrubs

that will outlive you.

© 2021 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Home Woods

2. Moab, Utah

3. Home Garden

Tularosa

A ponderosa-scented breeze

is delivered downstream

to this peaceful place

on the high bank

overlooking 

the Tularosa River

in New Mexico,

where I'm reading David Lee's

So Quietly the Earth.

Read, and look at my wife.

Read, then listen to the stream.

Read, and inhale the vanilla fragrance.

Read, then write about rivers and trees.

© 2021 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. 2. & 3. Tularosa River - Apache Creek, New Mexico

Found Poetry 4

Often, when I'm reading prose, (usually creative non-fiction and nature-related essays) I discover during the re-reading, that certain passages sound very much like poems. I know this is nothing remarkable to writers and discerning readers, but it occurs frequently in my reading. This is my fourth example of "Found Poetry"...

"For our soul's health, we need to take -- or make -- these moments of stillness, when we can let the world of nature, and of nature's Creator, speak to us in our interior world."
~ Luci Shaw  

from: Water Lines New and Selected Poems © 2003


Photo Location:

Sierra Vista, Arizona


You may also enjoy:

Found Poetry 3 ~ December 9, 2019

Found Poetry 2 ~ October 3, 2016

Found Poetry ~ May 18, 2015

How the Son of a Butcher Became a Poet

He read.
He watched.
He wrote.

© 2020 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Home Deck - Cannonsburg, Michigan 

Reading the River

The steady pull of the river
carries you toward the future,
proposing your purpose;

dropping the residue of regret,
now accumulating unseen
in the silt of the riverbed.

Rounded wrinkles swirl on the surface;
appearing and disappearing.

The fluid edges of light
bending blue and gold.

Like opportunities for change
sliding over the smooth current
of the present.

Slowing down, 
taking some time
to see what else

the river may bring. 

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Pickerel Lake Park ~ Fred Meijer Nature Preserve

Found Poetry 2

Often, when I'm reading prose, (usually creative non-fiction, and nature related essays) I discover during the re-reading , that certain passages sound very much like poems. I know this is nothing remarkable to writers and discerning readers, but it occurs frequently in my reading. This is my second example of "Found Poetry"...

"The liturgy of dawn signals the wonder of the arriving day. The magic of darkness breaking through into color and light is such a promise of invitation and possibility." 

from: 
To Bless the Space Between Us (A Book of Blessings)  © 2008
by John O'Donohue  (p. 191)


You may also enjoy: Found Poetry (May 18, 2015)


Photo Location:

1. Bushnell, Florida 

Return from the West

After returning
from the endless skies,
encircled by long horizons,
and driving the visible miles
on the plains of Kansas;

After viewing Colorado's
bouldered streams
and magnificent mountains
growing with tall spruces
and spreading Ponderosa Pines;

I am surrounded, again,
by this wall of green;
a thick, humid canopy
of Red Oaks and Black Oaks,
this density of summer leaves.

The far out
crowns of trees
are swaying in the wind,
brushing the sky
back and forth.

But down here
on the backyard deck,
only a breath of breeze gets through.
Enough to turn the page
of the book I'm reading,

and suggest an idea
for a new poem.

© 2016 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Buena Vista, Colorado 

2. Arkansas River - Buena Vista, Colorado

3. Rocky Mountain National Park - Colorado

4. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan 

Found Poetry

Often, when I'm reading prose, (usually creative non-fiction, and nature-related essays) I discover during the re-reading, that some sentences and passages sound very much like poems. I know this is nothing remarkable to writers and readers, but it happens with such frequency in my reading, that I've decided to begin a new category at my blog and call it:

"Found Poetry"

My first example comes from one of the best non-fiction writers of the past few decades; an author in the top five of my all-time list of favorites. Her name is Diane Ackerman.

The following passage is from Dawn Light (Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day) by Diane Ackerman. 

"Then the canvas of our awareness fills with a vastness so ancient, astonishing, and visceral that we can neither understand nor turn away from it because it speaks a dialect of bone, whispers through our cells with revelry and relief about the joy of finding oneself alive, again, on one more morning, as night sails off, replaced by a floating world of color and birdsong." - p. 51

Dawn Light - © 2009 Diane Ackerman

page thirteen

This poem was written July 17, 1992, outside our family tent, at Interlochen State Park, (Duck Lake Campground) in northern Michigan.


Little brown butterfly,
you've landed on page thirteen
of the book I'm reading
to warm your wings
in the morning sunlight.

First your right side,
and then your left.
Slanting and tilting
to keep your wings
perpendicular
to the warming rays.

I slowly slant and tilt
the page you've clung to,
to test your sensitivity.
You adjust your stance.
The experiment works.

You start to walk
over the words:
"Lake Michigan".
You have now entered
this short story* I'm reading;
become a new character.

Stepping over a few sentences
down to the next paragraph,
you pause on the words:
"butterflies migrate".

Then you take flight.

©  1992, 2013 - Richard Havenga

*Short Story: "The Way A Woman Thinks" from collection: Grass Fires - Dan Gerber © 1989